Safety means for protecting a container or a plant section against pressure exceedance are known. General instructions in this respect can be taken from the AD 2000 leaflet of the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Druckbehalter”, issue September 2010, Beuth-Verlag. The requirements for controlled safety valves are defined in the European standard EN ISO 4126-5:2004 (D), Beuth-Verlag.
Via a jet compressor, three plant sections located at different pressure levels are connected: The propellant system whose pressure level is the highest of these three sections as well as the parts of a process gas system located on the suction side and on the pressure side of the jet compressor. In the technical literature, the terms injector, radiator, propellant pump or jet pump can also be found as terms synonymous to jet compressor.
Because of the lack of moving parts and a drive, jet compressors are particularly simple and robust, require little maintenance and show little wear. But since on the other hand a jet compressor does not represent a mechanical barrier to the passage of gas, there is always the risk that for example in case of a blockage in the pressure-side process gas system the pressure of the propellant system is transmitted via the jet compressor to the pressure-side process gas system and the pressure admissible there is exceeded. Usually, the pressure-side process gas system is protected by a safety valve which vents process gas from this system in case of need. The vented process gas, for example when it is hazardous to the environment, must be trapped and eliminated in an innocuous way. The measures necessary for this purpose often are technically expensive and involve high costs. Furthermore, feedstocks in the process gas get lost in this way, whereby the efficiency of the material use of these feedstocks is deteriorated with regard to the generation of desired end products.